Pledge: Biohacking

Gene detection experiment

At a guesstimated total cost of £200.

Together with the equipment that we already have (thermal cycler) and are about to build (electrophoresis tank) this would give us the immediate means to do gene detection (we will design primers to extract particular genes.) E.g.:

• Detection of genetic modifications (identify GM food)
• Detection of species ("lamb curry test": are you getting what you bought?)
• Detection of variants of species (e.g. detect known traits based on published gene sequences)
• We can also send the results to a sequencing lab to get raw data back.

Pledges:

• martind £50
• Andy Cousins (amc) £50
• Gilda £30
• Bugs £50

Details

The money would provide us with enough materials for dozens to hundreds of experiments (depending on the particular item.)

For PCR:

• Primers (£20)
• PCR Reagents (£40)
  • Simga-Aldrich has loads
• Pipette & tips (£30)
• 0.5ml tubes (£10),
  • Cole-Parmer, £44.00 for 500
  • Cole-Parmer, £21.10 for £50

For electrophoresis:

• Power source (100V, low hundreds of mA; we have this)
• Agarose (£30)
• TBE Tablets (£10)
• Ladder (£20)
• Loading buffer (£20)
• Gel red/SYBR safe (£30)

Bugs' quick notes: NBS biologicals looks good. Cathal has bought from them before, and their prices seem comparable to Sigma, etc. Getting all of the electrophoresis chemicals from them comes to £107.50, just within the estimate :). Specifically, product no.s 8970, 8950, 8173, 6241

PCR machine / Thermal cycler

ALL MONEY RECEIVED - THANKS! PLEASE DIRECT YOUR MONEY TO OTHER ITEMS ON OUR PLEDGE LIST.

We won the PCR machine for £120.

• Nigel £30 - PAID £15
• Gilda £40 - PAID £15
• Irwin £15 - PAID £15
• Lauren £15 - PAID £15
• Martind £100 - PAID £15, pls claim the rest from me once more purchases were made
• Jonty £15 - PAID £15
• Radek £30
• Bugs £30 - PAID £15
• Keith $100 USD

Total pledged: £275 + $100 from the colonies

Total needed: £120

PAID: £105

Incubator

This one has been bid on and should be OK, currently at £10 http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/220725833946

...might need a bit of hacking, but we're good at that